Great Great Granddaughter of slaves says that beyond Beltway, coastal enclaves, there is continuing strong and diverse support for President

President Trump can win a second term in the White House proclaimed United States broadcaster Victoria Gaither speaking to the National Press Club

Miss Gaither who revealed that she was the great great granddaughter of slaves said that historic ties with Democrats were now diminishing and very largely because the Democrats had taken the electoral relationship as being permanent and thus had taken it for granted.

Miss Gaither, speaking in Wellington, New Zealand, cleared up a misconception in the English-speaking sphere to the effect that the ties with Democrats started with the emancipation of the slaves.

In fact she reminded her audience, the Republicans under president Lincoln freed the slaves in the United States.

However, the Democrats had subsequently exploited the situation and forged the ties that the party was currently unable to accept were increasingly wearing thin.

Miss Gaither said that audiences in the Commonwealth were on the receiving end of a distorted picture just because the news and opinion feeds from the United States were usually derived from the US mainstream media which largely ignored a bulk of the population in the nation’s interior.

Instead, it dwelled, almost exclusively on a narrow focus in the form of opinions derived from the coastal enclaves in which dwelled the political classes.

In regard to the Trump ascendancy, the mainstream media, she observed, collectively wrung its hands in a disbelieving chorus of “How did all this happen?”

Emmy award-winning Miss Gaither began her broadcasting career at ABC with Ted Koppel in Washington and then went on to cover the nation, notably in the Midwest.

Describing the Midwest now she observed that in practical media terms it was becoming increasingly “voiceless” due to the closure of daily papers.

The sense of non-participation in such regions in political terms was compounding with the confusion over what was being broadcast to them.

“You have all these new jobs now creeping into television and there is this uncertainty about what role the people on screen are supposed to be doing.

“Are they real reporters, lobby contributors, or pundits?”

Miss Gaither cautioned policy-makers in countries such as New Zealand when it came to formulating policy around opinions and forecasts emanating from these narrow-focus news sources.

President Trump from the outset, she said, had understood the sense of abandonment in what she described as the “quiet segment” of the United States electorate, the one far away from the Beltway and political classes.

This same segment of the electorate still supported him, she said, and contrary to the widespread belief within the United States and outside it, this segment was diverse.

“Hispanics – you name them – they are solidly behind president Trump,” she stated.

Adding to the confusion, she noted, was the relatively recent compression of the news cycle from days to a mere two to three hours.

President Trump’s focus on MAGA offered clarity within the blur of confusion.

This tectonic shift in attitude had been grasped by the alternate media which detected the emergence of this hitherto unheard segment of the electorate.

But not by the mainstream which, for example, had also wrongly forecast that president Trump would shatter the still very much intact Republican Party.

Miss Gaither, who is a member of the Washington and Wellington National Press Clubs, is involved in developing private radio in Oceania.

(Additional reports see www.nationalpressclub.org.nz)